Accused mosque burner’s own words part of trial

1of 8Imam Osama Hassan looks over the total loss of the Victoria Islamic Center, in Victoria, Texas on Tuesday, Feb. 2, 2017, as workers from Axis Demolition prepare to tear down the damaged mosque.Photo: Bob Owen, Staff / San Antonio Express-News

2of 8When a gush of water started flowing from a broken water line from the mosque, Shahid Hashmi, President of the Victoria Islamic Center rushed over to wash his hands before going to a prayer service on Tuesday, Feb. 2, 2017.Photo: Bob Owen, Staff / San Antonio Express-News

3of 8Dr. Irfan Qureshi, a board member at the Victoria Islamic Center in Victoria, TX, inspects the damage to the crescent that was on top of a dome of the mosque, on Tuesday, Feb. 2, 2017.Photo: Bob Owen, Staff / San Antonio Express-News

4of 8Yazen Hamoudah, a member of the Islamic Center of Victoria, holds a sign that says "we will rebuild with love" as hundreds of people gather outside the Islamic Center of Victoria for prayers of several faiths and to show support for the muslim community after the mosque burned in Victoria, Texas on January 29, 2017.Photo: Carolyn Van Houten, Staff / San Antonio Express-News

5of 8Hundreds of people gather outside the Islamic Center of Victoria for prayers of several faiths and to show support for the muslim community after the mosque burned in Victoria, Texas on January 29, 2017.Photo: Carolyn Van Houten, Staff / San Antonio Express-News

6of 8Josephine Soliz, city council member, hugs Imam Osama Hassan outside the Islamic Center of Victoria after people gathered to show support for the muslim community and pray on January 29, 2017 after the mosque burned in Victoria, Texas.Photo: Carolyn Van Houten, Staff / San Antonio Express-News

7of 8Shahid Hashmi, left, a board member at the Islamic Center of Victoria, looks to see someone appraoching, with a security guard at the door, in Victoria, TX on Friday, March 10, 2017.Photo: Bob Owen, Staff / San Antonio Express-News

8of 8Hundreds of people gather outside the Islamic Center of Victoria for prayers of several faiths to show support for the muslim community after the mosque burned in Victoria, Texas on January 29, 2017.Photo: Carolyn Van Houten, Staff / San Antonio Express-News

VICTORIA - When Kristopher Thompson’s parents told him on Jan.28, 2017 that the mosque in Victoria had just burned, his first impulse was to text a certain co-worker who was hostile toward Muslims.

“U didn’t help with mosque burning?” was the question he sent to Marq Perez, also an electrician’s apprentice at Hays Electric Company, according to evidence presented at Perez’s arson trial Tuesday.

Perez’s answer: “I didn’t even know there was a fire until I saw the smoke>”

Perez, 26, is on trial for three federal offenses, including arson and committing a hate crime, in connection with the destruction of the gold-domed mosque on Airline Road.

The fire traumatized the small Muslim community here and drew national attention, coming as it did during a debate about President Trump’s move to limit immigration from several Muslim-majority countries.

But the incident also triggered widespread public support, including $1.1 million raised on a Go Fund Me site, that helped pay for a new mosque now nearing completion on Airline Road.

Perez was arrested March 3, 2017, and has been held ever since. He faces up to 40 years in prison if convicted.

Thompson, 24, testified as a prosecution witness about Perez’s negative attitudes toward Muslims. He said his co-worker regularly used “basic slurs,” including “rag heads” and terms considerably more vulgar.

“I just put two and two together,” in suspecting Perez, the witness said.

Perez has said he had nothing to do with the fire, and his attorney Mark DiCarlo has hinted at alibis that may later emerge at the trial, expected to last two weeks.

Thus far, however, evidence tying Perez to the crime has been building, much of it coming from his own comments on social media.

Robert Nobles, an agent for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, testified Tuesday about the fruits of a search warrant executed on Perez’s home in Victoria on March 1, 2017. Among the items found were two laptop computers that were stolen during a burglary of the mosque days before the fire.

Also found were a hand-grip 12-gauge shotgun, shotgun shells and heavy duty fireworks. Authorities say Perez used similar materials in a car bombing two weeks before the mosque fire.

The next witness, FBI agent Chris Molite, testified at length about information included in 3,000 pages of online content generated by a search warrant aimed at Perez’s Facebook account.

Among Perez’s postings and private messages was a plan to create a “rogue unit” to monitor and possibly confront Muslims in Victoria, who, he believed were part of a larger threat.

“Local response squad is ready. Patrols are set around local mosques and centers,” he wrote on Jan. 19 to an unidentified correspondent.

In response to news about resistance to immigration in Germany, Perez wrote: “Let the war begin and let the Germans have their way. They’ll stop the Muslims cold and kill any that try anything that doesn’t involve leaving Germany. May no God stand between them and what’s coming to the Muslims.”

When DiCarlo, on cross examination, began asking Molite why the agency had not aggressively investigated various figures connected to the mosque, prosecutors objected.

U.S. District Judge John Rainey sent the jury out of the courtroom to hash it out with the lawyers. The judge, however, said he would give DiCarlo some license during cross examination.

“I won’t allow him to continue down a rabbit hole unless he has some basis,” he said.

Another prosecution witness, Matthew Markovich, a digital investigator for the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division, shared with the jury the analysis of Perez’s cell phone.

Markovich said he had obtained a digital copy of the phone’s entire contents that included photos, e-mails, texts, and internet searches, more than 7,000 related to Facebook alone, he said.

Among the most noteworthy recoveries were four photographs taken on Perez’s phone early on the morning of Jan. 28, 2017, that showed images of the burning mosque.

Markovich said he also discovered several Google searches made on Feb. 20, for the term “Man caught burning down mosque,” searches made two weeks before Perez was arrested.